Behaviour
The behaviour of domestic pigs is more like that of dogs and humans, rather than cattle or sheep; in many ways, their behaviour appears to be intermediate between that of carnivores and the more highly evolved artiodactyls. Domestic pigs seek out the company of each other and often huddle to maintain physical contact, although they do not naturally form large herds.
If conditions permit, domesticated pigs feed continuously for many hours and then sleep for many hours, in contrast to ruminants which tend to feed for a short time and then sleep for a short time. Pigs are omnivores and are highly versatile in their feeding behaviour. They can survive well by scavenging on the same types of foods that humans and dogs can live on. In the wild, they are foraging animals, primarily eating leaves, grasses, roots, fruits and flowers. Domestic pigs are intelligent and can be trained to perform numerous tasks and tricks. Recently, they have enjoyed a measure of popularity as house pets, particularly the dwarf breeds.
Very rarely, either naturally as a result of unusually aggressive behavior, or perhaps as the result of a pathological process which alters their disposition, domestic farm-based pigs have become aggressive and injured and eaten their handlers.
Read more about this topic: Domestic Pigs
Famous quotes containing the word behaviour:
“When we read of human beings behaving in certain ways, with the approval of the author, who gives his benediction to this behaviour by his attitude towards the result of the behaviour arranged by himself, we can be influenced towards behaving in the same way.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“... into the novel goes such taste as I have for rational behaviour and social portraiture. The short story, as I see it to be, allows for what is crazy about humanity: obstinacies, inordinate heroisms, “immortal longings.””
—Elizabeth Bowen (1899–1973)
“The methodological advice to interpret in a way that optimizes agreement should not be conceived as resting on a charitable assumption about human intelligence that might turn out to be false. If we cannot find a way to interpret the utterances and other behaviour of a creature as revealing a set of beliefs largely consistent and true by our standards, we have no reason to count that creature as rational, as having beliefs, or as saying anything.”
—Donald Davidson (b. 1917)